A Letter to a Departed

I remember how your skin felt
as cold and hostile as marble
as I pressed my lips against your rigid forehead.

I remember the scented flowers
strewn across the floor where they laid you,
and you, were wrapped in sheets, pure and white as fresh snow.

I remember the brown earth and mud
that swallowed you... and thus you could not witness
the poignant beauty of the setting sun that ornamented
the sky on that sacred Friday.

Such a shame ---
that no more mortal suns shall you see; No more moons.
And we who are left behind,
have only fallible memories that dull with the years
and photographs in battered albums
as testament of your existence.

And now in feeble words
I try to frame these last remnants of a dream,
envisioned long ago, into an elegy ---
but so disjointed and garbled like puzzle pieces
that refuse to fit,
these fragments that resist my taming.

Hence, 'tis not my intention
to push blame,
but Time is the thief who has stolen from me
the clarity of my memory.

---- circa 10th November 2003.